A month ago I received a job offer from an IT company from Helsinki. I am working as a senior software engineer. After passing the interviews the final offer is 53 000 euros, gross salary per year. Is this a good salary? According to my calculations that are based over internet research, it will be around 2800 euros/month net salary (please correct me if I am wrong).

Last week I told them that this looks a very low salary to me, and they said that we will get benefits from the country as well. They gave me the Kela.fi website from which I was not able to understand anything.

Therefore I would like to understand will we get any benefits like child allowance for my daughter or anything for my wife who will not work? And how much if possible? I found something like 340 e for my daughter and 1000e for my wife if she does not work, but not sure i I am correct.

Knowing how much will we get, can make the difference, since at the moment my net salary is 2000 euros in Bulgaria, a country where the standard is very low compared to Finland.

Moving to Helsinki from Bulgaria

First of all I don't know these things nearly as good as some forum members here but I have recently gone through this proccess myself and decided to move to Finland. The gross salary offered to me was close to the one offered to you and I have a much higher net income in the job I have now (although I too live in a relatively cheap country). BUT ask yourself this: what do you want for your family in the future? Finland offers a lot of benefits that are in my opinion not measurable in money. On the other hand does it really worth it to uproot your family if you have never lived in a foreign country before, and believe me Finnish lifestyle is nowhere even close to Bulgarian lifestyle. So you must decide yourselves as a family, noone on this forum can help you.

As for the net-gross income you can use the below calculator for an estimate but as a rule of thumb %65 net income is accurate enough.

That 2800 is an excellent salary in Finland. However that expects you to be single. If you have a wife, the wife works and gets the other 2800 in. For normal working person to have luxus-luxus life having wife lazy at home you can not be normal worker.

We have calculated it once with my colleagues when were considering moving to Canada and/or USA together. If you have a family, you should add roughly 3000 Euros to your Finnish salary when you compare it to countries with lower standards of life or very limited welfare state.
What you get in free and good quality education for your children, child allowance, health care, high standard of life, lower stress due to safety nets, and many other aspects.. all worth around 3000 Euros a month with our rough calculations.

That was long time ago, and I don't really remember the exact numbers we used. Plus, it's probably a slightly higher number now since the calculations were made 4 years ago. I don't know how much this is applicable to your case, but you get the idea. You can do similar calculations in about half an hour.

Every f*cking case is unique. You can't measure the result of your application based on arbitrary anecdotes online. Stop being a moron!

Net salary seems to calculated at least roughly right. You can manage with that (one salary, small family) in Helsinki with it, but you will not be probably feeling very well off. Mostly Finnish families operate with the two working parents (with varying interruption when kids are small). What do you think your wife's employment prospects are in the long term?

After that (or earlier, if you wish), if your wife registers as an unemployed job seeker (but does not actually find a job), the labour market subsidy is the basic unemployment benefit for those that do not qualify for anything better (about 700€ pre tax): http://www.kela.fi/web/en/labour-market ... d-taxation
If one applies for that one must participate for courses and other activities (including training jobs) offered.

Housing and other costs are higher here than Bulgaria. Education system is free or nearly free, and has so far been on pretty good level. The health care is fairly OK (probably better with more serious conditions than small ailments). You (not your family) would probably get a little extra comfort with some limited private health care plan of your employer.

Beep_Boop wrote:We have calculated it once with my colleagues when were considering moving to Canada and/or USA together. If you have a family, you should add roughly 3000 Euros to your Finnish salary when you compare it to countries with lower standards of life or very limited welfare state.
What you get in free and good quality education for your children, child allowance, health care, high standard of life, lower stress due to safety nets, and many other aspects.. all worth around 3000 Euros a month with our rough calculations.

Plus what usually gets ignored in the comparisons is the pension system. In Finland the gross payment does not include payment contributions that the employer does (around 20% on top). In North America you usually make the contributions from your gross salary. Valuing the Finnish pension contributions is hard unless you are quite close to retirement age. For young people the rules will change many times before retirement.

Not sure, but the first 3 years I do not believe that my wife will work. She will stay at home with my doughtier. Here in Bulgaria my wife does not need to work. A rent for 60m2 apartment is 200 euros per month.
My biggest concern is that after paying the rent, in Helsinki I will have less money then I have here with my current salary.
Other thing is that according to numbeo.com You would need around 4,740 € in Helsinki to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 2,000 € in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Pursuivant wrote:That 2800 is an excellent salary in Finland. However that expects you to be single. If you have a wife, the wife works and gets the other 2800 in. For normal working person to have luxus-luxus life having wife lazy at home you can not be normal worker.

To be honest I was not expecting that the salary in Finland for a senior software engineer is so low. In Bulgaria where the average monthly net salary is 370 euroes, I get 2000 euros net salary as a senior software engineer.

Hi
Looking at the net salary income of 53 000euros offered to you, I think your monthly income should be around 4 400e/month in 12month or 4 070e/month in 13months depending on how the company calculates the months/year. If my calculation is right, you should be able to live comfortably in finland and your wife could apply for unemployment subsidy or childcare allowance from Kela

bibitoye4 wrote:Hi
Looking at the net salary income of 53 000euros offered to you, I think your monthly income should be around 4 400e/month in 12month or 4 070e/month in 13months depending on how the company calculates the months/year. If my calculation is right, you should be able to live comfortably in finland and your wife could apply for unemployment subsidy or childcare allowance from Kela

Hi thanks for the answer. But the sum offered to me is gross not net salary. The latest is 52 500 gross per year. I have one more week to decide and we really do not know what to do

Hi
My gross salary is about 30 000e plus other benefit and I live a confortable life with my little child. Depending on what other factors you want to prioritize like living in your country of origin where you have friends and family, moving to a new environment and experiencing a new culture and society. Finland is a quiet place to live and raise kids but it can be quite expensive beyond imagination and tax can be crazy

It will be your choice if you want to choose experiencing a new work environment which might be an added advantage or ........ .

It is the small things which you will find over time that are almost unbelievably expensive.

I moved here from Slovenia, where I lived for about 15 years. I was used to my morning cappuchino for 1.20e, in Finland it is 4.20 for a latte in the Railway station................

I am "petite", aka short. Every pair of trousers, dresses, anything really has be to shortened. In Slovenia this was about 5 or 6 euro for 1 pair of trousers to be shortened. In Finland, I just paid 100e for 3 pairs. Getting my boots and shoes re-heeled is twice as expensive. Etc. etc.

Whenever I am in Slovenia, I can go to my local market around the corner and get fish, fruit, vegetables, fresh bread and milk products for the week plus 2 litres of wine for about 12e or less. This not possible in Finland, the cheapest wine alone would be about 8e minimum per litre.

I had a modestly good salary there, and I believe my standard of living was much higher in Slovenia than it is in Finland. I would need a "good" salary here to have the same standard. I ate in a restaurant at least once per week, I was in a cafe at least once per day and often 2 or 3 times. Evening drinks and entertainments often. I cannot do this in Finland. For the Slovenes who work in a factory and have a salary of 800e per month, than average industrial wages in Finland seem very good, but with a salary of 1500 - 2000e you live much better in Slovenia. I believe Bulgaria is much cheaper than Slovenia, and you have what I believe is a very good wage for Bulgaria.

I would consider carefully, especially as your wife does not work, life in Finland is based on 2 salaries.

roger_roger wrote:
If I were you, I'd sign the contract, come here and work for few months, experience things around and decide if you want to uproot your family here, as by law you can quit the job without any reason during the probation period (normally 3-4 months), if its not fixed term contract.

As an employee you never need a reason for non-fixed term contracts. After the probation period you are expected to work the notice period but the only penalty allowed by law is foregoing salary which basically means there are no consequences.